We said at the time that we had no problem with Foster’s comments whatsoever. Too often fans and Twitter followers will treat a player as if he’s not human, and it’s only fair for Foster to respond. As a human.

The entire episode has stuck in my mind the last few days, and I wanted to revisit it because it’s a shame if people get the wrong impression of Foster. He’s one of the most thoughtful, incisive players in the league whether it’s on Twitter or speaking to the media.

Foster is the type of player that can hilariously make Colin Cowherd look like a bigger child than Cowherd already is. Foster is the type of player to tweet an MRI of his hamstring.

It’s a great point and one I try to keep in mind. There are times I can be too cynical or unfair to players as a writer. Foster was just sticking up for himself.

“What I was saying that people who value a digital game over a human being’s health is just kind of weird to me,” Foster said this week. “And that’s all that I meant by that, and people took it as, oh, I don’t care about fantasy football. I think it’s good for the game. It gets people that don’t really watch into it. I’m on my mother’s fantasy football team, so I’ve got to do good.”

Foster has a problem with fans that don’t seem to fully grasp he’s just another guy, not a set of statistics.

One fan wrote to Foster that without fantasy football, Foster “would be cleaning toilets.” The fan told Foster he hopes he gets seriously hurt. We’ve read, and tried to delete, plenty of comments on PFT that hope for players to get seriously injured.

When you think about how many similar comments Foster probably received, his response seems remarkably mature.

Thanks Greg. Wanna do one about what a great guy Rashard Mendenhall is now??

Though it appears that most commenters on here prefer their football players to love only football (and maybe the Christian God), my personal preference is toward those who have something to say outside of football. Those who realize that football is just a job, like cleaning toilets or selling insurance.

What matters right now is our humanness. Our individuality. Our thoughts and feelings at this very moment. True team play is not about being a mindless robot, and true team togetherness is not about shutting others’ opinions down but rather appreciating our differences.

It’s a fine line, and I don’t expect many on here to understand. We are all human beings with the right to our own opinions and beliefs. We have the right to try and get paid commensurate with our value. This idea that says certain people don’t deserve that because they are professional athletes or public figures is really quite sad.

As a “serious” fantasy football player, ultimately I would agree, however it is hard to draft a guy with your first pick and see him go down due to an injury. But the difference with me, I would never complain to anyone other than my friends. Asking him on Twitter or in a press conference, ridiculous. At that point you’re suggesting that fantasy football is more important than his health.

I think the players realize the importance of fantasy football and how it has impacted the popularity of the game. It is the unfortunate small percentage of D-bags out there that send these tweets/messages looking to stir a reaction. I wish those morons would just go away.

“One fan wrote to Foster that without fantasy football, Foster “would be cleaning toilets.” The fan told Foster he hopes he gets seriously hurt. We’ve read, and tried to delete, plenty of comments on PFT that hope for players to get seriously injured.”

So you post one in this article. Why give that kind of disgusting comment any attention at all?

If he doesn’t like what a small percentage of jerks say, maybe he should delete his twitter account. Instead he throws a blanket statement out and then wonders why it offended so many.
He says he’s just another guy, like us? If it weren’t for fantasy football no one outside of Houston would care, If it weren’t for the NFL no one outside of his immediate family would care.

anhdazman says:
Aug 31, 2011 12:50 PM
100 % behind Adrian Foster. Who give a darn about Fantasy Football idiots. Get well, get back on the field. NFL football is better when the best athletes are on the field.

————————————————–

If you drafted Adrian Foster in my fantasy league you would be doing shots of tequila by yourself. Educate yourself then speak. Thank you!

Did you want to be a critic as a child? Or did your dreams die with your humility? RT @ESPN_Colin Hey Arian Foster—
‘We really do care about you as a human too. Um,now about that hammy?
–signed, everybody

More people need to put Cowherd in his place. I’m surprised he still has a career.

anhdazman says:
Aug 31, 2011 12:50 PM
100 % behind Adrian Foster. Who give a darn about Fantasy Football idiots. Get well, get back on the field. NFL football is better when the best athletes are on the field.

———————————————————
That’s Arian, which you would know if you played fantasy football, or knew how to read and write.

He’s a great guy. Fans take things too seriously too often. It’s easy when we read sports all day everyday to lose sight of the big picture. I love sports, but they’re just sports. Human life is precious. Foster is wise and his opinions are admirable. I’ve got nothing but respect for him and care only of his fantasy status because it is dependent on his health, not the other way ’round. Good luck this year mr. Foster, I wish you a healthy season and a healthy future.

Mr. Foster, please go and check how many twitter followers Shawn Alexander, Jamal Lewis, Priest Holmes, Ladainian Tomlinson, etc,etc,etc have…..you think you are better or any different from them in 2-6 years? People follow you because you play Football and score well on their FFB teams….No one would give a rat’s behind about a Houston RB if they aren’t a Fan of the team, and there was no FFB.

PS: Before Houston Kicks Steve Slaton to the curb….ask him about “fans” his rookie year when he posted +1,650 yards and 10tds…where are those people now?

Arian has to realize that the reason most people outside of houston know him is because of fantasy football. Its not like he’s got a potential career ending injury and people are asking him about it from a fantasy perspective. Its a tweaked hammy so lighten up. He needs to be more like MJD and be more fan friendly when it comes to fantasy football.

Arian, you are “entertainment” to us. That’s why we care about our fantasy league which is our “entertainment.” You are screwing up our “entertainment” by being injured. We aren’t your friend, you get paid because we pay for your “entertainment.” We’re not here to comfort you.

I’m sure Arian was PO when he felt the hamstring
tweek and knew right then that he’d be pulled from the game, he’d be out a while. To someone
that wants to rack up 200 yards per game is very
dissappointing. If you fantasy football players
can’t come close to keeping your own feelings in
check, what gives you the right to expect the same of him?

Here’s the thing, I don’t know you so why should I care about you as a person. Even Texans fans only “care” about you until your skills diminish. Don’t confused “fandom” with “friendship”. Leave the feelings and caring for the people who are close to you and who know you as a person and not as #23. Fans might say they care, but they really don’t. You could be a good or bad person and I would never know. So long as you bring my fantasy team points we are cool, and when you get a season ending injury, I’m going to drop you just like I would anyone else. Judging by your success the last year or so, you should get a huge contract soon and will probably cement the inability that we will ever meet on a personal level in order for me to develop an opinion about your personality. Don’t get upset that you don’t mean much to me other than that you are a workhorse for my RB1 position. Understand and respect our relationship please. You are a number, a stat line, I know what you look like, and I hear the answers you have been coached to give reporters, but that’s about it. You can choose to respond or not to respond to people who only care about if you can play or not, but don’t expect people who don’t know you to care about you as a person.

I just checked the scoring settings for my fantasy league and I didn’t see where I get any points for your thoughtfulness or insight. So my suggestion Mr. Foster is to shut up and go score TD’s. If you can’t do that then go scrub a toilet…..Oh, and don’t even think about kneeling down at the 1 and apologizing to me at the post game presser…….

Boo hoo…That’s life in the spotlight. If you don’t like it, trade in your celebrity status for a desk job….and you’ll never get asked another fantasy question.
………………….

So because he’s successful at what he loves and became a professional in a very selective field, he gives up his personal rights?? He deserves neither more or less based on the fact that he worked hard for his dreams and was able to do something more than a desk job.

You get paid millions of dollars to run with a football. Quit bitching because someone asked if you were ok, because you were on their team. I hope you get hurt Week 1….and you are on one of my fantasy teams….I guess I’m “sick”.

Seriously?!? Let’s think about this. He craps on fantasy owners because all they think about is their “game”? Has he forgotten what the sport of football is?? Oh yea, a game!! He plays a GAME for a living. The only people whom he puts in the category of “sincerely caring” that sincerely care, are his family and a few friends. The rest care only because he is on their football team and plays a GAME. That goes for owners, coaches, majority of team mates and all his fans. They only care because they want to see their team have the best chance of winning a game, and he helps those chances. Fantasy owners are no more in the wrong then the other people. And this is coming from a guy who doesn’t play fantasy sports!

Foster needs to understand that no one actually cares about him at all. Not his friends, parents, entourage, etc. He is only valuable to people because he is a decent football player and making money. Once that ends, the friends, entourage, and a lot of family will fade away.

Fantasy Football has brought more money to the NFL of recent than ANY team or player will ever. It is the SOLE reason TV contracts have sky rocketed and are the most lucrative aspect to the NFL. NFL fans will now watch all or parts of nearly 4 games per NFL week where it used to be just under 2.

Foster is the same as any employee for any company. They love you when you do well, fire you when you slack off or work / personal life interferes. He needs to apologize, shut his mouth, and understand that part of why he stands a chance to be paid so well is largely because of FF and NFL fans that only care about him when he plays well.

“We said at the time that we had no problem with Foster’s comments whatsoever. Too often fans and Twitter followers will treat a player as if he’s not human, and it’s only fair for Foster to respond. As a human.”

Thus the problem with allowing any idiot with a laptop to “comment” on the goings on of issues like these in a public forum. The player and the journo are public while the fan remains anonymous – and free to say any stupid insult that comes to mind without consequence.

I’m sure each one of us fans would just love to have our daily lives available to be critiqued by anonymous morons.

Players are adored like they are more than human. They are paid like they are more than human. This comes with the territory. Foster and the rest of the players….nobody pays you to speak. Shut up, get on the field and earn the pay and adoration. you don’t like it, quit.

“So because he’s successful at what he loves and became a professional in a very selective field, he gives up his personal rights?? He deserves neither more or less based on the fact that he worked hard for his dreams and was able to do something more than a desk job.”

He chooses to tweet and listen to all the fantasy honks. Twitter is full of people who only know the football player, so why is he so surprised that they only care about how well he will do for their fantasy team. For a guy who is thought of as an intelligent young man he sure is being naive.

I agree with Foster. I’m a football fan before I’m a FF fan. I play FF with my best friends and have for years. Never for money, just for bragging rights, but I hate when players go down, not because of FF, but because you never want to see another human being get hurt. Hell, I hate the Dolphins with a passion, but I’d hate to see any of those guys go down with an injury.

I agree that those people are sick though, and its not because they don’t care about his personal life. It’s because they either tweet at him with the expectation of getting a real honest answer or just to rile him up (this group looks to have been successful). It takes a real weirdo to tweet at celebrities a bunch of times in hopes of getting a reply or retweet. I have twitter, but I don’t tweet. I just use it as a very selective ESPN ticker on steroids, if you will. I think most normal people on twitter also use it in that manner.

Arain Foster is a baby. Always hurt he is as weak on the inside as outside. Fantasy is huge, and LOTS of fans play, have some respect to the true people that pay your salary. Without us football could be revered as volleyball, we make football FOOTBALL! U punk I dont have him but if i did i still wouldnt care as much 4 him (colts fan)and he sealed his fate with his “emotional” comment. So Arian go out there and “Break a leg kid!”

When did arian foster say he wishes other people would seriously get hurt??? You my friend deff take the cake for being the biggest idiot of all,enjoy ur life in ur moms basement wishing u were a football player.

Players need to realize that fantasy football brings a ton more popularity to the sport. More popularity means more money for these players. Obviously the actual game is the most important thing, but players shouldn’t just act like fantasy football is meaningless to them.

I fall in the middle with this one. I honestly love fantasy but I always pull for the Bears as priority #1. I realize some fantasy meatballs ACTUALLY hope someone gets hurt because they gain, but that is ridiculous. Given this context, I can appreciate Foster’s response.

HOWEVER, Fantasy Football has altered the profitability of the NFL. It would be interesting to compare the stratospheric rise in NFL profits and the popularity of fantasy football. I am betting they are correlated. Therefore, there is a grain of truth that fantasy indeed does matter, regardless of your opinion is for it or against it.

For goodness sake, it even makes a hard core Bears fan like me actually cheer for Aaron Rodgers, even though he is on the Packers!

Guess what Arian? FF makes people outside a particular market care about players on other teams… meaning they purchase TV packages, jerseys, boost nationally televised ratings etc. What does this mean? More $$$ for the NFL which in turn means more $$$ for you. THE CUSTOMER IS ALWAYS RIGHT!

Athletes use twitter because for the longest time if they wanted to speak to the media or masses, they had to answer questions from people exponentially smarter than them and they had to look at them when they spoke. They knew they were great on the field but below average in the other aspects of life like intelligence, speaking in coherent sentences, money management, etc. Twitter provided a forum for these guys to publish their every thought in short hand and they were not made fun of for it. If they say something stupid, (which is often) their agents or managers tell them to delete it as if it was never seen or existed. Twitter is the passive-aggressive way for athletes to pretend as if they were intelligent or “man” enough to actually say something but it’s just pretending and deep down they know it.

Wait, so fantasy football players are “sick” because they believed so much in his ability as a great football player that they invested in him as a top player and want him to be healthy to have another tremendous year to help their fantasy team win?

How does how is that polar opposite from a Houston Texans fan who want him to be healthy to help the Texans win?

I agree that NFL > fantasy…. but how is wanting him to succeed and exceed expectations at his chosen profession “sick”?

Ummmm…..just out of curiosity, can anybody tell me why he should care about people who only care about him as far as his statistics take their fantasy teams. Seriously, hammie problems can ruin a RB, so he’s looking at major financial concerns with this, and people are wasting his time because they want to know how much impact it will have on their fantasy team? Let us draw a paralell….

You fall off something at work and drop 15 feet and injure yourself, and get taken to the hospital. Your boss shows up at the hospital to see how you are doing, but he says it like this…”How are you feeling? Will you miss much work? I get a bonus if we beat the deadline, so if you’re going to miss a lot of time, I need to replace you soon.”

If you root for something to happen in a game that would benefit your fantasy team more than the game itself, you’re not a football fan.

If you are disappointed that a football player did something in the best interest of his team winning the game because it hurt your fantasy team, you’re not a football fan.

If you’re the seemingly rare type of person who can have fun with the minutia of fantasy football while still watching the game on its own terms, enjoying what’s actually happening in the contest of two teams and not caring what numbers are being racked up, then you have my respect for that.

I suspect the latter group is made up of very few people, proportionately. Which is a big part of my general disdain for fantasy football.

Fantasy football sucks. I haven’t done it since I was at the bar, trying to watch the Packers game, and this stupid fantasy football fat guy with Rams Zubaz pants and his Trapper Keeper notebook of fantasy BS, leaves for five minutes and then comes back, all hanging on me like a F’ing vulture, asking me if Marshall Faulk scored while he was gone. I told him to shove his Trapper Keeper up his arse.

I agree with Foster anyway these guys should not worry about Fantasy Football. We are not the ones paying them (kinda). But they really need to with about himself, teammates and keeping his job. Him (all pros) doing this will help out your fantasy teams anyway, but his job isn’t to put up fantasy points, it’s for real life stuff that matters. Here is an exapmle, if I owned a team (real life) I would not want Vick has my QB for a number of reason (won’t go into that), but fantasy team I’ll take Vick based on the point system of the league. Just like when Jones-Drew took a knee, all the fantasy people that cried, well do bad he didn’t want to run up the score and he was playin smart ball by taking the clock off (that’s real life stuff). Also yes I play fantasy football but I know the difference and what matters to the players more.

Guess what Arian? FF makes people outside a particular market care about players on other teams

Do you really “care about” those players? If one of those players you “care about” gets hurt, do you send them a get-well message, thanking them for all they’ve done in the past? If they get into a funk and their production goes down, do you remind them that it’s only a game, and they’ll get it turned around eventually? Now that you “care about” a player, will you think twice about discarding them in a second if they start hurting “your” “team”?

What about the players playing against the players you “care about”? Do they become less important, maybe even obstacles, maybe even a bunch of people you hope fail in their professions, putting their careers at risk?

The funny thing is Foster is right, people have all the wrong priorities today and most live in a Fantasy World let alone play Fantasy Football.

That all may have just a little of why our Nation is going down the Toilet as well. My kids have me play Fantasy Football each year but I would rather be out in the real World with the Horses. The game is really silly if you think about it.

My Father once told me that only a few had made our Nation Great and that most are slow and do nothing but ride off those others backs. When I look around today at all the Fools out there I see what he was talking about.

I guess I just don’t understand how people worrying about their fantasy football teams makes them sick. A lot of people have money on the line in a lot of these fantasy leagues, and in some cases a LOT of money. So what is so wrong with worrying about your fantasy team?

It’s not like Foster is laying in a hospital bed and his life is in jeopardy. He just hurt his hamstring. I’m not a doctor, but I don’t think a hamstring injury is life threatening or even life altering. Calling people sick because they don’t sincerely care about your hamstring injury just seems a little petty.

I don’t sincerely care because 1. I don’t know you personally and 2. Because it’s just a hamstring injury; you’ll be fine. If an immediate family member had just been shot, then I would probably sincerely care. But not over something as small as a hamstring injury.

Well, I love fantasy football, and I never had a problem with anything Foster said. In fact, I don’t think he needed to clarify a single thing. The problem isn’t fantasy football, nor is it a player’s response to it. The problem is that, like we find in many aspects of our society now, some people simply can’t separate fantasy from reality. Because of that, it’s become too easy for some people to treat others as abstractions rather than real human beings. That’s not a healthy approach to life.

Now, will I take into consideration Foster’s hamstring issue when it comes to drafting or setting up my lineup? Sure I will, as it’s rational to use all available data when making decisions. The difference is, my first thought on hearing about his hamstring issue wasn’t “gee, how will that alter my upcoming draft”, it was “man, I hope the guy gets better soon. He’s a great player that’s worked his way up from being an undrafted rookie, and I want to see him do well”. Ok, those exact words don’t run through my mind, but the same feeling is there.

As for the comments and responses that Foster actually received from people, having seen some rather horrid comments retweeted and some of the comments posted on sports boards (including this one), I have no difficulty believing that many were just plain vile. I’ve seen people wish career ending injuries on players for doing nothing more than ask for a pay raise or question the front office, I’ve seen people wish that DeSean Jackson would be permanently paralyzed because they thinks he’s too much of a showboat, and I’ve seen countless other comments every bit as bad if not worse. All of them made for reasons that don’t impact the life of the commenter in any way at all. I shudder to think what some of these people would say if a player’s actions or words affected a fantasy team they actually put their own name to.

At the end of the day, we all need to remember that both real football and fantasy football are just games. Yes, they’ve become big business because of the millions of people who enjoy watching and/or participating in them, but games nonetheless. Neither is worth a single human life nor a permanently disabling injury. Players do risk such injuries though because our love for the game has made the payoff so huge, and because they too love the game. They take those risks knowing they exist. That does not mean, however, that it’s ever ok to cheer for an injury or wish for one to happen. The risk of injury is simply a fact of life for players. The enjoyment that some fans seem to get from players not on their team being injured is just a sad statement about the pathetic nature of those particular “fans” lives.

LOL! Funny how some of you idiots hate on FF. You probably played and sucked or just too dumb and lacking football knowledge. FF makes every game relovant when they were not before. The proof is in the ratings. As for routing for him to get hurt, I personaly could care less we dont need to route anyway its a certainty! I love football. Everything about it. Fantasy, preseason, draft, pro bowl, reg sea, playoffs all of it. Fantasy are for real fans who understand football beyond there “team”. Team comes first but fantasy is right there. FF is for football junkies who cant get enough. Lots of players play what does that tell you! Kevpft u are a nerd who dont get it.(lots of things i presume). Pride in building and running your team grow a set maybe youll see what its like to be a man 1 day. MAYBE. Again the actual players….. PLAY! LOTs of the media PLAY. Damn we almost forgot to get laid!

He has a HAMSTRING injury!! He’s on my fantasy team and I need to know about his health in order to figure out who to draft/play. Foster needs to relax.

He claims that he doesn’t take himself too seriously. Really? Man, hardly anybody wants to see players get hurt. What does he want me to do? Send him my best wishes/regards? I don’t even know this guy!!!

I was gonna give him a pass on the tweet but then he doubled down on it! If I spent more than 10 seconds “worrying” about his hamstring then my head would explode. Just play football and good luck. Geeesh.

Thank you for your long winded explanation of society in general. With all of your credentials as a psychologist, I can’t believe you have the time to spare on a football message board.

Look, people can separate fantasy football and real life. The reality is people don’t care about athletes like they used to. Athletes are worse now than ever before and their sense of entitlement is why they are looked at for their stats only.

EVERY SINGLE NFL PLAYER is in the top 1.5% of earnings per year for the USA. Please forgive the “vile” people for not being sensitive enough to these d-bags that can hardly spell their own names.

Arian Foster is right on. I can understand playing it if you’re in high school or college and you’re torn between Fantasy Football and Dungeons & Dragons, okay, I guess it’s the lesser of two evils. But Fantasy Footballers need to get a life. How anyone would prefer to root for individual players over teams is beyond me. And if you’re only in it for the money, be a man and go to Vegas or find a bookie.